DIY Christmas forest advent calendar
Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year – especially when you get to open a little present from a home-made advent calendar every day.
This Christmas forest is not just a lovely advent calendar, it also makes a pretty decoration for your windowsill. The little trees can be made in a trice and can be decorated however you like. Clean lines and shimmering frosty colours give them an elegant look and show off your hand lettering especially well.
An article by Lisa Tihanyi
Print out the templates for the trees in a range of sizes, transfer to the sugar paper and cut the trees out of the sugar paper.
Using a ruler to guide you, go over the solid lines on the template with the blunt side of a pair of scissors or a bone folding tool – that way the paper will fold better.
Now fold the trees along the lines, remembering to fold the tab, too.
Using a pencil, write a number in informal handwriting in the middle of the tree.
Then take a pigment liner (0.8 mm) and go over the outline.
Double up all your downward strokes, and colour in the spaces between them. This is all you need to do to get a great calligraphy effect!
Metallic markers stand out especially well against dark-coloured paper.
Sketch in the number in pencil, adding big circles at the start and end of the figures.
This will give the numbers a great look. Go over the outlines with the metallic marker and colour in.
Draw a number with extra wide lines using a pencil. Go over the outline with a triplus color fibe-tip pen.
Shade in the number with four colours from the same spectrum of colours. It creates a particularly lovely look, for instance, if you make the shading darker at the top and lighter at the bottom.
Light coloured or white paper is good for this design. Sketch in the number with a pencil. Add an outline around the number, making it thicker.
Go over the 3D lines with a triplus color fibe-tip pen. Now shade in the space between the 3D lines with a lighter colour.
Now add the 3D effect in pencil. To do this you need to decide which direction your effect will go in.
Here we’ve created a three dimensional effect going down and to the right. To achieve this, lines have been added to the right side of the number and below it, so that it looks as if it is in 3D.
Go over the 3D lines with a triplus color fibe-tip pen. Now shade in the space between the 3D lines with a lighter colour.
And you're done!
What you need
Additionally required:
Sugar paper in a range of colours, glue stick, nail scissors or folding tool
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